Keeping your customers happy is a priority, and with the competitive nature of advertising and sales, convincing new customers to buy is always going to be more expensive than offering impeccable service to your (already) loyal audience.

Statistically speaking, it costs on average 6x as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Furthermore, companies are 60-70% more likely to sell to an existing customer compared to a prospective (5-20%). Overall, your current customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more when compared to new customers.

The lifetime value of a customer can contribute nicely to the bottom line, and this is true across industries. In the manufacturing sector, for example, the value of the “aftermarket” experience (services, spare parts, customer interactions) accounts for 24% of the revenue and can make up to 45% of the gross profit.

Ultimately consumers want a flawless product experience – they like to be guided through the “busy traffic” of any online shop using information that speaks to them. They want to easily find differentiated products which are relevant and convenient.

Use customer feedback to shape your marketing and product information (e.g. match the data model of your online catalog with popular search terms customers use to find your products, then update your product descriptions to be more discoverable.

Manage social media updates (and your clients’ expectations) and monitor what people say about your products and how they use your website and mobile applications to buy, asks questions and discuss issues.

Offer better post-purchase service by encouraging people to share their experience with your products online using a diversified array of digital assets (photos, video testimonials)

How a Product Information Management Solution can Help

The first step towards maximizing product information is to make it easy for your organization to have good product information in the first place.

Product Information Management removes the need to manually modify and update product data throughout a business’s operations and takes the grunt work out of pushing information around a busines’s supply chain ecosystem in an effort to create unified and relevant product content (locally and globally). A PIM solution allows businesses to tweak product information based on customer and market feedback and efficiently sale content production while offering a differentiated experience aligned more closely to a customer’s language and psychology.

Product Information Management in Action

Ulta, the largest beauty retailer in the United States, offers more than 20,000+ products from over 500+ well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points, including their own private label.